Three months ago I had an abdominal surgery, which taught me two significant lessons about the atonement of Christ.
Lesson One: Although my surgery was relatively minor, for several weeks I could not walk my children to school, or vacuum my carpets, or lug my laundry upstairs. My husband, my children, and my friends had to help me out. I am stubbornly self-reliant and found this challenging, as well as inconvenient. Some things were done on other people’s timetables, not mine!
One Saturday, my older daughter was vacuuming the playroom for me and I was watching her, when I was struck by a sudden thought. “Right now, Abigail is doing something for you that you cannot do for yourself. She is learning to be like the Savior. Tell her.” So I did. She smiled and looked quietly pleased. Later, my younger daughter was moving clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, when I felt inspired to tell her the same thing. Rebekah drew the parallel, even before I could fully state it, then flung both arms around my neck, her face a great beam of joy. “Oh, Mama, I love you!”
I realized, then, what a vital reminder I had needed. Sometimes I fancy that I can be perfected with just a little help from Jesus—after all, I’m a good person doing a good job. My physical limitations had brought forward my spiritual necessity. I cannot be saved without the full power of the atonement. Christ truly did for me what I cannot do for myself, even redeeming me from my own ignorant self-complaisance. There is a vast gulf between my mortal state and the holiness required to dwell in God’s presence. Only he can make me holy, and he will do it in his time and his way. Just as I had to swallow my pride and ask people to help me, I must ask him to help me, too.
Lesson Two: Through pain, I am drawn to the Savior. He has helped me learn that my pain is a tool to help me understand, in a small measure, the pain he endured in the garden of Gethsemane. I cannot comprehend the infinite nature of the atonement, but I am more grateful for the pain that he experienced for me. Knowing that he has experienced my every pain completely helps me to understand how deeply, how personally he loves me. From childbirth to lung surgery to endometriosis to abdominal surgery, he has experienced it all with me and for me that I may know that when I suffer, I do not suffer alone. Truly, I am graven in the palms of his hands. My image is etched in his heart. Knowing that my pains are also his has filled me with greater gratitude for the atonement of Christ. A grateful, humbled heart draws me to him.
In this way, the pain that I experience in mortality helps to lead me toward eternal salvation. I know he lives! I know, indeed, that I am personally before his face, night-and-day. This gives each new experience of pain greater meaning and replaces despair with hope. And I know that if he loves a simple, ordinary me so perfectly, that he also loves every other man, woman, and child on earth with such specificity, such clarity, such compassion. It is the burden and the joy that he carries. Truly, it is his “work and [his] glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”— one-by-one.
I felt the following talk and scripture were very fitting.
"The Atonement Covers all Pain" by Kent F. Richards and Alma 7:11-12
11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
